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[Eclipse]

I did some tests in 3d, keep in mind that i've not used any shader here so they looks ugly and textures are also incomplete, but they give an idea and... Hell, it's almost a damn new game.

One of the proud astronauts that *may* populate the game, it will have a spheremap blended on a simpler texture instead of that stuff on the visor


The first stage of an alien lifeform, maybe it will host inside a living body like Aliens chestbuster but it will came out from the head, make it exploding


and a very quick test with sucking graphics




I did an astronaut and not so cute alien creatures mainly because i think that cute aliens might not work as good in 3d versus humanoid shapes (yes, i dislike Spore style actually)and as King said it's not a plus on the previous design.
So cute astronauts *may* became the main player creatures, having to research alien lifeforms, building a base, shields, interplanetarian rockets, harvesting resources from asteroids and fight versus other space colonies, all in small 3d destructible planets. The ecosystem thing will survive because Astronauts need to plant algae to make oxygen for a biosphere, research aliens dna and clone them etc

I'm exploring such different things only because i want to set up something that works for real so i know it can sound strange having a guy changing a lot of stuff every post but i'm deep in a brainstorming\pre-production phase.

At the end, 3d "pros" are:

- maybe an higher quality impression for a publisher and for mainstream gamers
- ...uhm... nothing more for me, but the one above could do the difference :\

2d pros are:

- faster to develop, I'm alone so that's a good point, making 3d models drains a lot of time
- simpler to port over other platforms, also on handhelds (see N+)
- more indie-friendly?

now i'm doing also more complex 2d tests, making a lot of stuff over that little planet, different creatures and so on, i'll show something soon, i hope today

[Melly]

Well, I kind of liked the cutesy/simple look of the first screenshots, but that's just me. Also, if you start using fairly complex graphics, make sure the player has the option to turn off any shaders and all that stuff. If really sucks being unable to play a simple-looking game because it asks for one shader your card doesn't support (personal experience with Toblo).

In the 2D vs 3D, there is the point that usually while 3D allows for more complex worlds and events that branch out in the 3 axis, 2D is simpler to present to the player in a fashion that he can spot all the necessary information. Coding a reliable 3D camera system is another thing you'll have to work with if you take the 3D path.

That and I'd prefer 2D myself for the aesthetics and because it's usually faster to develop.

[Corpus]

The 3D looks pretty damn cool but, honestly, I think you could achieve more striking and recognisable visuals with 2D for this game.

[Eclipse]

i think i'll stuck with 2d now that i did few more testes!

here's a zoom over one type of the tiny creatures the game will feature


now it's time to do vegetation, more creatures, and some fancy eyecandy effects!

[Akhel]

That looks really awesome!

Why don't you try 2D sprites in a 3D environment? Make it so that the player can move  in all three axis, but not rotate the camera (so the only difference would be in depth, not angle). Just a suggestion.

[Eclipse]

thanks! actually they are 3d models in a 3d environment, it's all made of polygons here

see, wireframe



or are you saying not to limit the creatures only on the planet borders or having multiple "layers" in space? if that, i'll have two layers, a background with decorative stuffs on the planet, a foreground and a middle plane were collisions occurs

[Massena]

This truly looks great! I prefer the more 2d look although 3d would work too.
I just wanna be the guy begging for mac support :D Please?

[Melly]

That's looking totally awesome.

[shinygerbil]

testes!

That's an unfortunate typo :D :D



This game is looking really sweet. I look forward to seeing where it's going.

[Eclipse]

argh.. yes that one was a typo but my english sucks too, maybe because i'm a lazy italian 
unfortunately i'll not able to work today since is my birthday (22 ! )and parents and friends wants to make me catch some sunlight (arghhh it burns!!!)but stay tuned, I promise, no more lonely planets screens the next will have a lot of new stuff 

[postlogic]

Oh man, I really like that 3D style you have going there. Low-poly goodness :-)

The 2D stuff looks very cool too, though. Can't wait to see how this progresses now.

[PHeMoX]

Whats this all about?!?!

Holy shit, your avatar rocks.  Who is it? Originally drawn by you or? It has excellent style.

[Eclipse]

small update, i dropped the fixed pipeline and everything is now rendered using pixel shaders 1.1 that's mean that the game require at least a geforce 4 to run.
I'll do also a fixed version for integrated chips too for that ugly intel chips in some ye ol' laptops.

oh and, bloom:


(click to enlarge!)

now i'm digging with sound
next screens will features a lot of animated creatures, more stuff around and *VERY* improved overall graphics

oh, and also antialiasing, currently that damn aliasing ruins my bloom filter effect

[Hideous]

Do want.

[siiseli]

This looks rather awsome. Loco roco is the first thing I see when I look at the pics :p

[Akhel]

I don't like the bloom.

[Eclipse]

don't worry, i'll make it nearly non-noticable, and it will be calculated only were the light is

[Javilop]

Amazing 2d rendering! I really like the style. Bravo!

The game play you have described make me remember Spore. Cool!

I have thousand of questions:
- Can you explaing a bit about the technology you have used?
- These clouds are a 3d model? And the tree?
- Do you have a "tree generator" or it just 3d model / drawing? Are you using OpenGl? - Are you using a toon shader for the trees, clouds and creatures? Also for the planet?
- Can you show us a wireframe screenshot of the little creatures?

More questions later :D

[Eclipse]

Amazing 2d rendering! I really like the style. Bravo!

The game play you have described make me remember Spore. Cool!

I have thousand of questions:
- Can you explaing a bit about the technology you have used?
- These clouds are a 3d model? And the tree?
- Do you have a "tree generator" or it just 3d model / drawing? Are you using OpenGl? - Are you using a toon shader for the trees, clouds and creatures? Also for the planet?
- Can you show us a wireframe screenshot of the little creatures?

More questions later :D

sure :D
ok, I'm using my own 3d engine written in C++ and directx for that (i'll write also an opengl renderer soon i hope), I'm using no zbuffering so everything is sorted before, this is for two things 1)performance, 2d games doesn't need a complex thing like a zbuffer 2)fancy rendering tricks, like the trasparency on the clouds, the tree is rendered before the cloud so it will be show in trasparency, bloom is rendered after, so the clouds blurry anything goes behind
Oh, the bloom filter is done in a single pass using render to texture.
I'll upload a wireframe of the little creature soon, you can view the planet one some posts ago, currently i'm using only a vertex shader for the outlines, no cellshading or sorta, only flat colors (my vertex buffers have only vertex coordinates and color, neither normals or uvs mostly, it's very lightweight so i can have very high framerate with a lot of things on the screen )

About the tree, it's semi-generated, i did different pieces and let the game put it randomly together, i think it's the best way, i'll end with more control over the graphical side and still a nice random effect. Trees will have an huge role on gameplay too

Oh, I'm using Ageia\NVidia PhysX, it will turn to be too much for something like this but i did an awesome wrapper for my engine so I started using it also on Circle, and it's also very fast and stable, *A LOT* more than ODE or Newton for example

[Javilop]

Wow!!!! Really cool all the staff you implemented. And thank you for explaining!

Can you explain a bit more about this render-to-texture-single-pass-bloom. Any tutorial out there? I would like to try it myself Do you need a pixel shader to apply on that texture?

And can you explain more this vertex shader you have used for the characters, etc? Looks very cool. I would like to learn how to implement such things myself

Ageia\NVidia PhysX, will be too much maybe, I don't think too much people have this card. What about using Box2d?